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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well Researched But Theme Pushed Too Far,
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This review is from: The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life (Paperback)
As the Soviet archives have been opened, researchers have had a rich treasury of new information on many Soviet figures, particularly Lenin, Stalin, and their lieutenants.Serious Soviet scholars have long known that strong circumstantial evidence existed that Stalin had been a long time informer (and actual agent) for the Tsarist politcal police, the Okhrana. Using new Russian materials, including archives, interviews and unpublished manuscripts, the author seeks to fully explore and explain the consequences of Stalin's Okhrana service and the file left behind documenting it. Had this information come out during Stalin's reign, it obviously would have been devistating. It would have exposed him as nothing more than an opportunistic fraud that had betrayed his Bolshevik comrades. Some had been imprisoned, exiled, or even killed as a direct result of his treachery. Indeed, when Lenin discovered that his close associate Roman Malinovsky had been a Tsarist agent, he was humilated and enraged. When Malinovsky returned to the Soviet Union from abroad to try and make amends, he was arrested. After a brief trial, he was shot. While a number of authors over the years have downplayed the seriousness of Stalin's past as an Okhrana agent, I would disagree. Some scholars have noted the very fine lines of double (and even triple) agents during this period. However, it seems Stalin, like Roman Malinovsky, was more than just an occasional snitch for the police. I believe his past treachery was serious enough that a good number of Soviets, many in the Cheka/NKVD, were killed to prevent the information from becoming public during Stalin's life. There is quite a bit of evidence for this, which, of course, is one of the main themes for this book. However, while this book is well researched, I think it takes it's themes too far. In short, most of Stalin's murderous ways and high crimes are traced back by the author to the Okhrana file and Stalin's attempts to keep it from becoming public. I think that this is, in the end, far too simplistic an explanation for Stalin's behavior and methods. I also have a few other problems with the work. One, the author continually tries to apply Freudian psychology to Stalin. Many of Stalin's actions are said to be based on certain psychological factors relating to events in his childhood and other periods of his early life (such as being beaten by his drunkard father). While such speculation is interesting, too much of Stalin's behavior is attributed to these factors with no real evidence -- just the speculation. I also had some problems trying to find out exactly who some of the author's sources were and how they would have known the information attributed to them. In some cases, I was unaware of the person cited and could find no reference anywhere in the book as to who they were and why we should believe what they had said. Students of Stalinist history and the Soviet State Security apparatus will find this a valuable work and an enjoyable read despite it's flaws. It is certainly the most detailed work yet on an old mystery from the early days of the Soviet regime.
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